The First Single From Bomba Estéreo’s New Album is “Duele,” a Surreal, Dalí-Inspired Video

Romantic heartbreak can be surreal, especially when you didn’t see it coming. All of a sudden, your life is a disorienting nightmare, a pesadilla that feels painfully permanent. It isn’t; all things inevitably pass. Bomba Estéreo‘s new video for “Duele” reminds us of that — and it’s in that initial illusory pit of despair where you might actually find your strength.

Filmed by U.S.-based director Sam Mason, the clip is actually shot in and around Joshua Tree, not in a Colombian desert like the Bogotá band initially conceived. Singer Liliana Saumet says they were more set on snagging Mason than a specific local. His insight helped draw color from the beat-driven ballad — in the lyrics, Mason saw red. “I think it has to do a lot with the issue of pain, with heartbreak,” Saumet says. “It has a lot do with visualizing pain.”

The opening shock of seeing a lover cheating firsthand — while the main character’s simply trying to get some groceries, mind you — leads to a mind-bending Salvador Dalí reference with a flurry of floating relics of a relationship ruined. The red lighting of the market is undone by the brightness of the sun in the new desert setting, but the color retains its prevalence. Roses, the red shopping basket, tomatoes — all striking jolts of intensity among the scattered reminders of a life shared, now split.

In that dream-like fragment, Saumet also sees a touch of today’s reality.

“It’s a little more artistic, very visual with bold colors that have a lot to do with pain, with the song,” Saumet notes. “And it’s also very surreal, because we are going through difficult times. Everything is surreal now.”

In that way, Bomba Estéreo expands the meaning of “Duele.” It’s about a breakup, yes — but heartbreak isn’t reserved only for romantic love gone wrong. That fiery sadness and the ache of emptiness are pains we might feel as a result of any type of offense. Watching hatred and violence run rampant all over the world certainly qualifies.

The single is a teaser ahead of a forthcoming album, due this fall, that follows 2015’s Amanecer. The pointed quiver of the traditional flauta de millo — a woodwind instrument typical for classic cumbia — kicks in right at the song’s emotional crux, fluctuating in and out of verses as it highlights the shakiness of working through the anguish.

We get to see the fruits of that struggle, the satisfying end result of overcoming: the unjustly spurned defiantly fight back. Bomba Estéreo has always championed that ability to overcome, to not only endure but thrive despite a downfall. “Duele” doesn’t wallow in the emotional mires, but instead conveys the feeling of what it’s like to triumphantly climb out.